Course Description: The goal of this course is to introduce you to the basic principles in economics, from microeconomics to macroeconomics. This is a foundational course which will help you see the breadth of topics covered under this field, as well as introduce some important tools which will help you analyze everyday phenomena. We will spend approximately 6-8 weeks studying microeconomics, which will look at consumers and producers as well as their interactions in different types of market structures. The remaining 2-4 weeks will be spent studying topics in macroeconomics related to the aggregate economy and the effects of the actions of the government and the central bank on the national economy.
Pre-requisites: None
Course Syllabus: [Link]
ECO 228: Environmental and Natural Resource Economics
Course Description: The focus of this course is the application of basic economic tools to understand and evaluate environmental issues and policies. We will spend some time developing the tools of economic analysis in environmental economics, followed by an in-depth discussion of the various types of environmental policy. We will then move on to study local and global environmental issues such as energy policy and climate change through the lens of environmental economics. The last week of the course will be devoted to presentations of your course project.
Pre-requisites: ECO-101
Course Syllabus: [Link]
ECO 373: Seminar in Environmental Economics
Course Description: This course will introduce several advanced topics in environmental economics. We shall consider questions such as: how do economists value goods that have no readily available monetary value, such as clean air or a biodiverse forest? We shall study tools used to answer this type of question, as well as ways of evaluating environmental programs and policies that are already put in place. We shall spend time developing commonly used tools in environmental economics such as hedonic pricing methods, contingent valuation surveys and quasi-experimental program evaluation. I will do an overview of econometric techniques where appropriate. You will be required to develop a research topic using the tools discussed in class. The goal of this course is to teach techniques necessary to do analysis in environmental economics as well as familiarizing you with this literature.
Pre-requisites: ECO-241 and ECO 243
Course Syllabus: [Link]